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Got in touch not too long ago with a childhood friend, the kid next door whom I spent most of my non-Barbie time with, Jeff. Back then we played so much Super Mario Brothers I could fly through those levels with my eyes closed. We picked lemons from my tree and ran a lemonade stand on the corner, we played camp crystal lake at backyard sleepovers (even though I had no idea at the time what that was), we even put on a neighborhood talent show with other kids, lip syncing with tennis-racket guitars to our favorite songs from the movie Dirty Dancing as the audience--our parents--watched us with mild shock on their faces. Yes, the more embarrassing memories have started flowing and so did my nostalgia for San Diego.  I've decided it's time to go back, and I'm planning to do just that for my one year wedding anniversary.

The last time I visited San Diego was 2000 and I had my first experience with what a lot of people like to refer to as an epiphany.  Driving over the Coronado Bridge early one morning an unnamed Coldplay song came on the radio. The view of the sun breaching the clouds over the city was breathtaking and something in that song spoke to me as I drove, I felt my place in relation to the world and in a flash I grew into my age of 22--no longer a child, both frightened and empowered; I imagined a string of hope extending off into the distance, like a hidden path revealed to me, an answer to get through a deep hurt I was carrying around like, well, baggage.  After that trip I went home to absorb the 'epiphany', I remember taking lots of walks alone in my neighborhood, staring out the icy window of the city bus, contemplating everything in my life with new eyes. Within the year that followed I left my office job to go work in a bookstore where I had nothing to do but read (best job ever), taught myself how to get better with my camera and closed 2001 with showing two pieces at the Beaux Arts Ball in Pittsburgh.  My life felt in control and meaningful, but still so distinctly incomplete.  As much as the industrial grey and decay of the city had seduced me, no inspirational atmosphere could compare to being in the once-familiar places known as a child. The streets, the smells, the names and signs, the aging process, the evidence of time passing. Or even just saying, "Hey that's the playground where I got de-pantsed."

So, going to visit San Diego (with husband who has driven me past his elementary school here in Miami at least 12 times): awesome.

Epiphanies: also awesome but few and far between and possibly non-existent.

Old school friends: the best.